


It Can't Be Helped

by Asynca



Series: Ready, Set, Go! - Speed Prompts [14]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alcoholism, Angst, F/F, horrible angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-23 14:13:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7466442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asynca/pseuds/Asynca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompted on Tumblr: "How about writing a prompt using one of Mercy's dialogue lines? :)" Okay, I'm choosing 'It can't be helped'. Written in 20 minutes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Can't Be Helped

 

“That smile of yours makes me  _sick_ ,” Reyes spat, practically in her face. After all these years, Angela had thought she’d be used to his gruffness. She found she still wasn’t. “We lost. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

She finished bandaging him and forced a bright smile. “Of course it does. But being miserable about it won’t change anything, will it?” He gave her such a horrible look of disgust that it made  _her_  feel sick.

_What people say to you says more about them than you_ ,  _Angela_ , she repeated to herself as she moved on to her next patient, and tried to put it out of her mind. After all, it wouldn’t do to dwell on something she knew she couldn’t change.

That evening, when the Valkyrie was hung up and she was back in her sweats, she switched on the TV and went to cook a quick dinner before Fareeha arrived home.

_“…another sixteen hundred dead, I’m afraid, Wilson,_ ” the reporter was saying as she half-listened, “… _and there’ll be more by nightfall. Such a senseless tragedy, all these people dead—looks like this gang doesn’t care about how many orphans they create._ ”

Angela’s knife froze mid-carrot-chop, catching on the word ‘orphan’. She drew a long, slow breath. Then, fingers shaking, she forced herself to keep cutting.

“… _and with the area already short on doctors and medical supplies, there’s not much that can be done to change the outcome, now_ …”

The knife slipped, and she very nearly cut herself. She stopped for a moment, leaning heavily against the kitchen bench and staring down at her half-finished dinner. Here she was, merrily cooking dinner while people were  _dying_.

_Don’t be silly, Angela, you can’t make it all the way to that country tonight_! she tried to tell herself dismissively, but she couldn’t pick up the knife. She couldn’t do it. She kept thinking of those tiny baby children lying awake in bed, waiting for parents who would never return home to kiss them goodnight. 

About those children, how they’d spend their entire lives desperately searching for ways to stop other children from ever feeling than pain, and about how when they were  _so_ close,  _so close_  to finding a way to mass-distribute advanced resuscitation nanotechnology, all their research would be catastrophically destroyed by people they considered their friends. 

She looked up at the cupboard above the stove. 

_Maybe just one_ , she thought, reaching for it.  _Maybe just one wouldn’t hurt._

The problem was, it was never just one.

When Fareeha arrived home, found Angela semi-conscious on the couch hugging an empty wine bottle, with the dinner boiling over on the stove. Sighing, she hurriedly turned off the gas, and then went to care for her girlfriend.

There were dried tears on Angela’s cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she slurred as Fareeha propped her up; Fareeha wasn’t even sure it was meant for her. “I’m so sorry….”

“I know,” she said quietly, cradling Angela and taking the bottle from her hands.  


End file.
